Just a reminder that my new teaching book (Transformative Education – How Can You Become a Better College Teacher?) can be downloaded for free (for FREE) at the University of Richmond Scholarship Repository. Since being issued a few months ago, it has been downloaded more than 2,600 times.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/
And, if you want to read about the book, here is a story from Inside Higher Ed.
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Summer is here!! It is a time for resting, of course, but also
an opportunity to reflect on how you can become a better teacher. I want to present one thought today that
might be worth pondering over the summer break as you plan for your classes in
the fall.
I am currently taking an online course on British literature. This week, the professor was discussing Shakespeare and made the obvious observation that we all have trouble following the words that we hear in those plays. The professor then explained (more than once) that until the last 100 years or so people were much more adept at listening for information than they are now. Today, most information comes in through our eyes, but in Shakespeare’s day few people could read and even those had little material available to read. A vast majority of information was conveyed orally.
Thus, over the centuries, people became well trained in listening and comprehending. Storytelling, as in the works of Homer, served as a primary form of entertainment for thousands of years. People sat around in the evening and listened to stories for hours. A sermon in a Puritan church could last up to five hours. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, one candidate spoke for 60 minutes. Then the other responded for 90 minutes before the first person used the final 30 minutes as a conclusion. Could you imagine a debate today where the contestants talked for three solid hours? The audience would be lost.
The professor’s point is that much of current humanity has lost the knack of careful listening. Today, after a mere 15-minute sermon, an after-dinner talk, or a graduation speech, audience members often are unable to recall one memorable fact. Many college teachers (although certainly not all) use lecturing at least some of the time. How should we deal with our students’ inability to listen well? They are not bad students. Our society has simply moved away from an intense need for careful listening.
When I raise this question to faculty, they sometimes respond that they expect their students to take careful notes of what is being said. I often refer to this as “learning through stenography.” Students are not so much learning as they are transcribing (and then memorizing). After middle school and high school, many have clearly become talented at the task. Every semester, I have students who literally write down each word I say. However, if I ask them a question, they are often unable to tell me a single thing I have said. They are writing but not listening.
Teachers need to acknowledge the environment that they face. A smart football team will play differently in the rain or snow than it does in sunny weather. The coach helps them adapt. Teachers need to recognize that keen listening is not a skill that many people under the age of 100 possess today.
I define lecturing as doing more than 50 percent of the talking because that indicates a majority of the information is coming directly from the teacher.
If you are going to lecture, I believe it is essential to structure that process carefully to help your students listen and retain the information effectively. Here are six suggestions that I think can help.
1—Start by letting your students know what you are planning to convey. What is the end-message you want them to understand? Without guidance, listening to a lecture can feel like walking through a forest path with no idea of where you are going. Consequently, as the listener wanders along, it is hard to judge what is important. For example, in one of my classes, I might start by informing my students, “I want to explain the three reasons a manufacturer who is a lessor would prefer a new lease contract to qualify as a financing lease.” That one sentence provides several learning clues (manufacturer, lessor, prefers a financing lease) that the students can watch for as my story unfolds.
2—Include numbers as often as possible. “Here are three examples.” “Here are five rules.” “Here are two exceptions.” That clue provides each listener with an organizational structure. Once again, the listener is being guided. “Over the next few minutes, I will discuss debt instruments and there will be three primary types.” You are enlightening the students as to what they should listen for as you lead them along the path of your topic. (The next time you go to a graduation ceremony see if the speaker begins with, “I want to suggest three things you should achieve after graduation.” If some type of guidance like that is not provided, you may be in for a rambling speech.)
3—Start each new section of the lecture (maybe every 5 or 10 minutes or so) by posing a question. Then, carefully work your way to the answer. When I give teaching presentations, I often create a short PowerPoint presentation that is no more than five or six slides, each containing a single question. I pose the first question to my audience (hopefully to get them intrigued). Then, I spend the next few minutes explaining my response to that question. Who should care about this question? What are the key elements we should investigate? How do we begin our quest for an answer? A good introductory question sounds like a mystery, and everyone loves a mystery. (“Why in the world would a company even care whether interest expense was judged to be an operating cash flow or a financing cash flow?”) With a starter question, both the teacher and the audience automatically know the purpose of the next part of the lecture.
4—When you write and then repeat something, it seems like wasted words. When you write and then repeat something, it seems like wasted words. The first sentence continues to be visible so why would you need the second? In an oral presentation, however, the words vanish as soon as they are spoken. If a student is distracted for even a second or fails to hear a word, the logical framework being constructed is damaged. A gap appears in the student’s understanding. Consequently, redundancy is never a bad idea. Obviously, no one wants to hear the same words repeated verbatim. However, going over a concept and then providing a quick summary is never a bad idea. Giving an example and then explaining how it relates to what you have just said should help your listeners keep up with the flow of the message. Always keep the idea of “vanishing words” in your mind and you are less likely to rush through a topic.
5—Be very careful with the sequencing of your message. Because the student might be struggling to follow along, you want to make sure you make the presentation as logical as possible. If a speaker talks about the knee bone and then jump to the neck bone and then drop back to the ankle bone, the structure is not readily obvious to anyone but the speaker. Thus, as you prepare for class, think carefully about the sequencing. Which concept should be discussed first and what is the most logical aspect of the topic that should come second? In my own preparation, I’m always amazed by how much time I spend on sequencing.
6—Provide the
students in advance with a barebones outline of the upcoming lecture. Although they are popular with students, I am
against providing extensive PowerPoint notes for three reasons. First, it is just a different version of conveying
information for them to memorize. You
are merely doing the transcribing for them.
Second, I don’t want to spend my time typing up those notes. I have better things to do than be a typist
for my students. Third, once typed, the
notes have a tendency to become frozen over time. I like for my classes to evolve each semester
as my thoughts about various topics change.
Typed notes have a way of becoming permanent notes. Instead, a quick outline just to show
(visually) the structure of the coverage and how you are moving from one step to
the next can be helpful and not take that much of your time.
I hope this helps. Simply recognizing how difficult it is in 2024 for students to listen and comprehend a 50-75 minute lecture will make you more aware of the need to help them. Remember this is not 1606 when Shakespeare wrote MacBeth. Students at that time were probably better prepared to listen to a lecture and understand it without prompts or assistance. Times have, indeed, changed and it is important to acknowledge that.
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